


I Know It's Only Trouble

by Sineala



Category: Frontier Wolf - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Angst, Community: trope_bingo, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-31
Updated: 2013-03-31
Packaged: 2017-12-07 01:25:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/742541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hilarion is in love with Alexios. Alexios is in love with a dead man. Hilarion and Alexios should most definitely not sleep together. Unfortunately, Hilarion is very bad at making good decisions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Know It's Only Trouble

**Author's Note:**

> For Trope Bingo, my free space, with the trope "secret relationships." Thanks to Carmarthen and Osprey_Archer for beta. Title borrowed from the Peter Mulvey song "The Trouble With Poets."

Hilarion will remember this for the rest of his life.

He must, because it will surely never happen again.

He must fix every detail in his mind: the way the light of the flickering oil-lamp plays across what is visible of Alexios' skin, darkened now to burnished gold in the warmth of the flames, then disappearing into the shadows where Alexios' tunic is pushed up to his ribs. The way Hilarion's own hand, so pale in comparison, fits neatly against the jut of Alexios' hipbone, bracing him, holding him down. Alexios' fingers, twisted in the rough striped blankets he's brought all the way from Britannia, flexing and grasping at the wool in time with his raw, harsh breaths, in time with the wild thrusts of his hips that Hilarion has to restrain, lest Alexios choke him.

Hilarion finds himself wondering how few times Alexios has ever done this. Alexios is a considerate man in so many other respects, so much so that surely this must be a sign of his inexperience rather than any maliciousness. It is not as if Hilarion said he enjoyed having his mouth used so roughly. Though, to be fair, it is not as if either of them said much of anything.

Alexios' other arm is flung across his face, across his eyes. He hasn't looked at Hilarion since undoing his own breeks. It doesn't matter. Alexios' face is steady and determined, and he bites his lip. Every so often he moans, a little breathy gasp, the only noise that issues from him. He is not smiling. It doesn't matter if-- if Alexios never wanted it to be him, but Hilarion had always hoped he would be smiling.

Hilarion shuts his eyes.

In the dark it is easier, for Alexios is a man just like any other, and it becomes a matter of rote movements, of muscle memory. He licks here, he squeezes harder, tighter, the way almost everyone always likes. Alexios is no exception. Under him, Alexios gasps again and thrusts more insistently, awkwardly pushing a little more than Hilarion was prepared to take. No matter. Hilarion breathes through his nose and drops his head down, down. It will be over soon.

Suddenly Alexios arches up, groans, and, without any warning, spends himself in Hilarion's mouth.

Hilarion has wanted this for years. Two of them, precisely. In his imaginings, with his hands on himself, he often comes envisioning this very instant, thinking of how Alexios will sound, how he will taste, how wonderful it will be that Hilarion will have been the one to do this to him.

At this moment, Hilarion is bitterly thankful that Alexios is so quiet. Some men call out the names of their gods, of their lovers.

He knows whose name Alexios would have said.

When he opens his eyes, finally, he wipes off his mouth on the back of his hand and stares at Alexios, who is looking back at him with lazy, sated eyes. There is a smile on his face now, a little half-smile of pleasure, but it is false, all false. He has seen Alexios happy. Once, just over a year ago, he saw Alexios trading comments with the man sitting next to him, making jokes about a horse. Montanus' horse, the one that started and ruined all things. Alexios was laughing, he was smiling, and there was a light in his eyes brighter than anything, all for the man next to him.

That man was not Hilarion.

Now Alexios smiles his joyless smile and clears his throat. "Well."

It is the first thing anyone has said in quite a while.

"Indeed," Hilarion agrees, pushing himself up to sit on the edge of the bed. His arousal is quite inconvenient now, the wool of his clothing rough, and it is blatantly obvious how much he liked doing that, though Alexios never touched him. Suddenly it feels awful, exposing, that Alexios should know even this much about his desires.

Alexios looks at him, and then his gaze drifts downward, lingering for rather a long time on the evidence of Hilarion's enjoyment. He licks his lips, and Hilarion twitches at the sight of Alexios' very pink tongue, darting slickly forward. "Do you want," Alexios begins, haltingly, "do you want me to help you with that?" His fingers clench again on the blankets, but he does not reach forth. Not yet.

In his fantasies, this is where Hilarion smiles and says something witty in agreement. Something expected.

The terror that swamps him is quite unexpected. He imagines Alexios looking at him, touching him, Alexios' hands on his skin. Alexios would see him, he would know him, and it would all fall apart. A deception can only stretch so far. Alexios does not want him. Alexios has never wanted him. Not him.

But if no one touches Hilarion-- if no one sees him-- then it might last, as much as any ill-advised relationship between a ducenarius and his praepositus can. They can pretend. He can be another man for Alexios. He can be whoever he has to be.

It is not the best game, not at all, but Hilarion has played far worse, and it can hardly be stopped now.

If Alexios touches him, he will break. He knows this as surely as anything.

"No," he says, quickly, too quickly, jumping to his feet as Alexios' eyes widen. "I am quite well. I bid you a fair Midwinter Night."

He can't make himself salute, but he is out into the corridor before Alexios can say anything in reply. It is for the best. He would not have wanted to hear it, anyway.

* * *

Alexios does not love him.

This Hilarion repeats to himself as he sits on his empty bed in the darkness, one wall away. He hopes that with each repetition it will become bearable. He knows this. He knew this. He ought to have known this.

There were so many nights at Onnum, before Alexios awoke from his delirium, that Hilarion sat at Alexios' bedside praying to every god he could name that Alexios would recover. On one such night, a night Alexios will never remember and never learn of, Alexios was mad with fever and he reached out for Hilarion, joyous.

He called him Cunorix.

And yet Hilarion has done this.

He does not even have the excuse of drink, for he is completely, terrifyingly sober. He has never been wise. He only-- he only wanted Alexios so much, and now--

At least Alexios... enjoyed himself. That was good. That was the point. Perhaps Alexios is happier now, relieved, sated. Perhaps he sleeps well. Ah, it was sweet to lie next to him, even for such a short while. It was better than being alone.

Hilarion lets himself fall back to the mattress and he shivers in the cold until sleep finally claims him.

* * *

The morning mess is a little emptier than is the custom; Hilarion thinks on it for a moment, and he realizes it is only lacking the few men who are Christians, some of the old Third Ordo officers. None of the Attacotti are Christians, not yet, and belatedly Hilarion remembers that the handful of Mithras-worshippers ought to have been celebrating as well, last night. He wonders what they did when their praepositus did not show up for the feast. He wonders what they would think of what their praepositus had been doing instead.

"Ducenarius Hilarion!" Vedrix raises his cup in his direction, a distinctly informal greeting. "We missed you, at the dancing!"

Oh, yes, and there had been a place for him as well.

"Too cold to dance in the snow, I'm afraid," he says, and he hopes he manages his usual smirk with its usual credibility. One of the dubious benefits of a face like his is that if he goes on to say he prefers warmer pleasures, like the bed of his commander, half the room will laugh at his fine jest and never think he could be telling the truth.

But he does not. Alexios is here, frozen like a startled deer at the sound of his voice, and Hilarion wonders for one awful instant if Alexios will give everything away. One breath, two, and the terrified look in Alexios' eyes is gone, replaced with a tentative smile.

Friends. They can be friends. No, Hilarion corrects himself, they are friends. What happened between them in the night -- it surely cannot interfere with this, the companionship they have had for so long. He will not let it.

* * *

They walk together, carefully, up the icy stairs to the breastwork. Though there is no one accompanying them as such, Hilarion is conscious of the heavy tread of the sentries behind them, making their rounds. He and Alexios are not alone. They would be overheard. If they talked about it.

Alexios stops and turns to look out at the forests, spread out below the fort. The trees are blanketed in new snow, still clinging to every needle and branch, and the land is pristine and white, as if it had been made new again while winter should rise up into spring.

Hilarion puts an elbow up on the wood and leans against it. Alexios is not watching him, and as always he finds he is... drawn... to his friend. He likes to look at him, often. He wonders if Alexios has ever noticed.

He finds himself admiring, anew, the way the morning light shines on Alexios' face. Save for his pale British eyes, Alexios' features are dark and finely-carved, with that set to his brow that men like to call arrogant; Hilarion himself had certainly thought Alexios was just as arrogant as that, when he first met him. It is not a thing one usually likes about a man, to say that he looks as if he thinks himself better than everyone, but perhaps it is because Alexios is the very opposite of that man that Hilarion likes the look of him. Or perhaps he just likes him.

Alexios does not look thus so often these days. It had taken Hilarion long enough to realize that it meant he had been afraid of the Wolves.

Yet here he is today, furrowing his brow with that same fearful set and squinting out at the snow.

He could touch Alexios, Hilarion realizes. He could come closer, wrap an arm around him in the cold. It is not as though men do not stand together. It is not as though they never have. And then Alexios would relax and smile and it would be better, for they would be together, they would need fear nothing.

But it is different now, Hilarion knows. Now it would mean something else. Something he wants. But does Alexios?

Finally, Alexios' face smooths out, then wrinkles in a different manner as he raises an eyebrow. "Lovely weather, eh?"

"It is not so bad, sir," he drawls. "Could be worse."

One of the things he loves about Alexios is that Alexios has begun indulging every single silly remark he makes. Alexios will let him bait him, and judging from the way his mouth is twitching, he is enjoying this just as much.

"Oh?"

"We could have been with the Third Ordo still," he offers. "You wouldn't have wanted to see them after a great snowstorm, sir."

Alexios is already starting to grin. "Wouldn't I?"

He shakes his head. "Snowball fight," he says, straight-faced. "Quite horrible. I shouldn't like to subject you to that."

Alexios' laughter is excellent to hear, a joyous ripple of sound, half-disbelieving but amused all the same. "I am certain," Alexios retorts, scoffing, "that I could handle that. Don't you think?"

Oh, Hilarion does think. He thinks too much, and no good will come of it. All at once he remembers the way Alexios twisted and arched under him, last night, and how the awful silence was so different from this, but could they not have both, not just one thing and then the other--

Hilarion smirks. "If the commander wants snow down the back of his tunic, he has only to ask."

_If the commander wants anything else--_

Alexios is still laughing, bright and beautiful. "Go on," he says, "get on with you. There's work to be done."

* * *

Hilarion is not entirely certain how he makes it through the rest of the day; he suspects that most of it is due to the fact that he has very little time to spend in Alexios' company. Half the Wolves are out on patrol, freezing, and the other half are lazing about their barracks, with all the time in the world to get into all the trouble they shouldn't. He spends a good portion of the afternoon sorting out the kind of mess that was too big for the centenarii, but not enough to bother Alexios with -- a few of the men had begun to dice for actual coin, and it ended in a brawl in the icy drifts by the store-sheds when the loser had not been able to pay up.

"Call it even, eh?" he says to the miscreants, who stare at him with blackened eyes. "You've taken out more than your share of the winnings in bruises."

Last year, he thinks, he might have bet on them himself. He would wonder when he changed, but he knows exactly why.

There is not much to do, formally, other than that; he makes the evening rounds with Centenarius Quintus, tapped to Hilarion's former post from what remained of the First Ordo, and to his relief he finds that there seems to be nothing amiss going on. A quiet evening. Even the town that is beginning to grow at the base of the fort seems eerily silent, blanketed by snow. It is good enough.

"I will make the report to the praepositus," says Hilarion, as he often does, and Quintus nods and salutes in farewell before Hilarion has even thought about what he has said. It is too late to change his mind. He will be alone, properly alone, with Alexios for the first time since-- since-- oh, he cannot even name it.

It is only a conversation, he tells himself. A conversation, like any other, between officers. When he reaches the sacellum doorway and salutes, his hands have almost stopped shaking.

Alexios looks up from the desk, where he sits surrounded by great stacks of papers and tablets. The lamps are at the edges of the room, by the shrine, casting hazy circles of light that barely reach the center, and Hilarion wonders how Alexios can stand to read at all.

"Hail, ducenarius," Alexios says, very formally, and his face does not shift, not in the slightest. "Your report?"

Hilarion steps forward, close to the desk. The sacellum is small enough here that he is almost within an arm's reach of Alexios. "There is little to say," he says, and he knows he is badly off if cannot even say it with a smile, "provided you have already heard of the fighting."

There is a show of emotion at that: exasperation. Pursing his lips, Alexios sets his stylus on the desk, then sighs and puts his face in his hands for a moment before looking up. "Is it as bad as that?"

"Hardly," says Hilarion. It must sound far worse than it is, he realizes, since by now Alexios must surely judge the severity of a matter by how much Hilarion will smirk about it. "A few bruises each, and they'll not be picking that fight again."

Alexios nods. "Well. That is good."

They stare at each other, awkwardly, in the silence.

He has to say something. "I only wanted to say--" he is not sorry, he is not, and damn him, but he can't say it-- "about last night--"

Hilarion's throat closes up, and his heart pounds in his chest like the old Votadini war-drums, fast and heavy and ominous. He can't talk about it. He did not know, until this moment, that he could not talk about it. But it is too late; he has said the thing.

Alexios breathes in, once, sharply. The sound could be surprise or pain. His face is still unreadable. "What about last night?"

Hilarion smiles an awful smile, nothing like what he feels, and he reaches frantically for something he can say. "I am told the Mithraeum was an emptier place, without you."

"Oh." Alexios seems to relax, a little, and then he shakes his head, looking rueful. "So I have not celebrated it in three years now. You were right, what you said last night--"

What did he say? Oh, gods, what did he say?

"--that I should not be alone on Midwinter Night."

He had said that. He had. And then, somehow, Alexios had stepped into his arms, and--

Hilarion takes a breath. "You would not have been alone in the Mithraeum."

"They would not have understood why I needed the company." Alexios is still shaking his head.

Oh, Hilarion understands. He needed to play a dead man's part.

And Alexios is not looking at him like a man who acknowledges what is happening, what has happened. From the way he is talking, they could have been as chaste as the Vestals. Alexios isn't even looking at him at all.

"I know." Hilarion takes a step back, turning, ready to leave. So it did not happen. He should have expected nothing different. It is not as if he can talk about it, and even if he could, they are here in the sacellum. In the most public of places. "Good night, sir."

"Wait." Alexios' voice sounds strange, awful, haunted.

There comes the scrape of the chair, wood against stone, and then Alexios' hand catches his wrist. He turns, and suddenly Alexios is right there, inches away from him, his eyes gone wide and dark. There is no love in them, no happiness, only a kind of terrified desperate desire, and Hilarion hates himself for knowing that he will take this much and be grateful. He hates himself for knowing that he will take this at all.

Alexios steps closer, and, oh, pressing up against him Alexios is hard already. He has wanted this, he has wanted this all along. Hilarion slides one leg between Alexios' thighs, angled so that Alexios will not touch him. Alexios only whimpers and rubs up against him. How are they even doing this? They are in the sacellum. Anyone could walk by right now. Anyone could see them.

"Please," Alexios whispers, and Hilarion knows he cannot resist.

He is grateful too that he is so much taller than Alexios, for when Alexios tries to kiss him, he only reaches his throat, then his jaw. Hilarion wrests his head away. He can't. If Alexios kisses him, it will be only him, too real, there will be too much of him in it--

"I don't kiss," Hilarion lies, urgently. "Don't kiss me. I don't kiss."

Alexios may have no heart left, but this will break his.

He feels Alexios nod against him, and roughly Hilarion presses them both back toward the desk, sending scrolls flying as Alexios sprawls on his back while the wood creaks under him. Alexios' hands splay across the desk, seeking purchase, and his head is thrown back as Hilarion palms him through his breeks. He is beautiful.

His eyes are already shut. Hilarion should have expected nothing else.

At least Alexios will be fast, he thinks, working at the ties of his breeks as quickly as he can. There will be no way to make this look like anything other than what it is if they are interrupted, so Alexios will have to be fast. Under him, Alexios moans and pushes against his fingers. The sound is raspy and broken and thrills through him; Hilarion can almost pretend it is truly for him.

Finally Hilarion gets the damned ties undone, and he nearly moans himself as he finally takes Alexios in hand, heavy and hot and already so close. Alexios whimpers and thrusts up into Hilarion's fist, again and again, sending a corresponding rush of desire through Hilarion himself, an almost overwhelming tide that he can barely fight. He could-- he could touch himself--

No, he tells himself. He does this for Alexios.

So he slides his hand faster, trying to think only of Alexios' response, of the minute shifts in his breathing, the movement of his body, the way he arches back all across the desk, wanton, needy, caught up in the feeling of it. His face is still set in concentration. Hilarion can give him this. It is only sensation. It is only that Hilarion happens to be here. Oh, he may be a friendly sight, perhaps attractive, but Alexios isn't even looking at him. Anyone would do.

He squeezes a little harder, he thinks, and Alexios moans again, pushing up into the circle of Hilarion's fingers harder than before, which is when it finally sinks into Hilarion's mind that they are in uniform on the sacellum desk. He swears under his breath and rips off his own scarf with his free hand just in time, and Alexios groans and thrusts once more--

Eventually Alexios opens his eyes and looks down, all along the length of his body, and raises an eyebrow when he sees Hilarion's scarf. Hilarion has the feeling that Alexios seems to be searching for something to say. "You were concerned about my uniform, so you thought you'd use yours?" he asks, finally.

"Anything for you, sir," he says, and oh, if Alexios only knew how he meant it. But he cannot even make himself smile.

Having fastened his breeks, Alexios looks up at him in a manner that is oddly nervous, and then down at Hilarion's once-again-obvious arousal. "Can I-- do you--"

He can't talk about it. _Don't make me-- please--_

Hilarion shakes his head. "No. I need nothing."

Hilarion has always been a liar.

* * *

No one notices.

Hilarion supposes that, as far as the First Attacotti Frontier Scouts are concerned, he and Alexios have always had a strangely intimate relationship. The same is true, after all, for the rest of the Third Ordo who came with them; the six days from Castellum to Onnum had left their mark on their souls as much as on their bodies. Vedrix and Brychanus, still optiones, seem to communicate only through nods and narrowed gazes, signs that no one else can read. Why should not he and Alexios be the same? Since Anthonius had taken a post in Britain, Hilarion is the only survivor of Castellum among Alexios' senior officers. It makes sense that Alexios would be close to him. He is the only one left.

So if he should spend more time with his commander, why should any take notice of it? There is nothing strange about that. It is not as if he visits Alexios' quarters every night, and Alexios rapidly becomes very good at making very little noise. No one would know unless they were in the room.

He wonders how this is happening. He wonders how this is continuing. Every night that he walks toward Alexios' quarters is a night he wonders: will this be it? Will this be the end of it? Will this be the night Alexios looks at him and tells him to get out, to leave, to take a transfer? And yet he goes.

They do not speak of it. It is easy not to talk of it, once it becomes a habit; silence is an easy custom to maintain. He comes to learn Alexios' body, in the quiet stillness, night after night: how Alexios likes to be touched just so, quickly but not too roughly, not until he is at the very cusp of his pleasures; how Alexios likes it even better if Hilarion presses a kiss or two to his thighs before taking him in his mouth. It is the only kiss Hilarion allows himself, and every night he leaves dressed, unseen, untouched.

He is still aroused by these acts; there is no way to avoid that. He almost wishes they did not arouse him, for he cannot even bring himself to completion when he is alone. He tries, a few times, but his erection ebbs away from him, and it is all frustration. He cannot touch himself now without thinking of Alexios, and he cannot think of Alexios without thinking of this entire hideous mess. He wants Alexios. He has Alexios. It should be simple. But Alexios wants a dead man, and nothing is simple.

Even more frustratingly, his dreams know no such restrictions, and his sleeping hours are full of the pleasures his waking body denies him. A few nights a week he dreams, invariably of Alexios, who laughs and smiles and takes him in his arms. _I always wanted you_ , dream-Alexios says, kissing him, and Hilarion wakes to sticky sheets and the awful disappointment of remembering what the reality is.

One evening, Alexios has been drinking more than is his wont; Hilarion can see it in the way Alexios holds himself, languid, loose-limbed, before they even come together. He thinks perhaps Alexios might have smiled a little, but he knows that is only the wine. If Hilarion were to kiss him, he would taste it. The smile means nothing. It is not real. But as Hilarion steps toward him he keeps his eyes fixed on Alexios' mouth, that he might remember this. That he might pretend, later, that it is him Alexios desires.

All he can do is stare, his mouth dry, as Alexios begins to strip off his clothing. Up until now it has been a rushed, hasty thing between them, and he has not seen more of Alexios than was strictly necessary. But for some reason, tonight is different. He wonders if Alexios drank to be able to do this. Then he wonders why Alexios needed the courage. He thinks perhaps Alexios drank a little too much, as his hands tangle on the laces of his boots, the cross-gartering of his breeks. Hilarion stands frozen, watching, when he could have helped. It only occurs to him afterwards that he could have helped.

It is not at all elegant and rehearsed, like a dancing-girl might be, and somehow that only makes it all the more erotic. Every movement, every revealed inch of skin sends a jolt of warmth down his spine, tingling and pooling hot and low in his belly. Alexios has to know what this is doing to him, but still there is only silence.

Finally Alexios is nude, half-turned away, with the moonlight from the window glancing off the dusky skin of an angled shoulder-blade, off the curve of his buttocks. He is slight but not fragile -- no soldier would ever be -- and the line of muscles show a life lived hard. He is shivering a little, for the night is not so warm. He is perhaps the most beautiful man Hilarion has ever seen, and it is so bitterly unfair that none of this is as he wants it.

There is only one imperfection, and that is the great twisted scar that runs down the outside of Alexios' left arm. Naturally, it is this that Alexios notices him staring at.

"It's an ugly thing," Alexios says, softly. "I'm sorry I have it."

Of course he is sorry. It is Cunorix' death.

"I'm not." His voice comes out of him low and grim.

"No?"

Hilarion shrugs. "If it had been on your sword arm and not your shield arm, you'd be dead now."

Alexios tilts his head a little. "So I would."

And then, somehow, Alexios is in his arms, so warm and alive, looking up at him with great dark eyes. They are close enough that he can smell the wine on Alexios' breath.

"Don't--" Hilarion begins, reflexively, not even certain what he is going to say.

"You don't kiss," Alexios whispers, and he draws one fingertip down from Hilarion's shoulder to his chest. Hilarion imagines he can feel the touch even through his tunic, and it is all fire. "I know. It's all right."

Hilarion tumbles Alexios to the bed. Alexios moves fluidly, easily, rising up against him, spreading his legs as if there is nothing, nothing but pleasure, and perhaps for him right now it is that easy. In the back of his mind, Hilarion wonders how differently this would go if he'd helped himself to some of the wine.

"Like that, ah, yes--" Alexios moans, when Hilarion wraps a hand around his cock. "You know-- you always know how to touch me--" The drink has made him more vocal. But his head is still tipped back, his eyes shut, and even if he is half-smiling Hilarion knows whose hands he must be imagining.

Hilarion slides down Alexios' body and settles between his splayed legs. Alexios likes his mouth better than his hands, and perhaps more pleasure will serve to stop his words. Alexios has never said his name any of these nights, not once, and Hilarion does not want to hear more praise meant for the man he isn't.

So he takes Alexios in his mouth, down, as far as he can go, the way that almost always makes him come in an instant. Alexios is trembling under him, panting and pushing into his mouth, and--

"No," Alexios gasps, and Hilarion pulls his mouth away. What if this is the end? He has finally realized the madness of it. He has to have.

"Alexios?"

The name echoes strangely. Hilarion is suddenly, acutely aware that he has not said Alexios' name before either. Not during... this.

Alexios pushes himself up on his elbows. He is covered with a fine sheen of sweat and is gasping for breath, near-destroyed. Hilarion has done this to him, and he can't even enjoy it.

"I didn't want you to stop," he says, wide-eyed, and Hilarion has no idea what his own face looks like, that Alexios thinks he should need this... reassurance? "I just wanted-- I wanted--" he swallows. "Fuck me. Please. That's what I want."

Hilarion thinks his heart misses a beat or two, and it feels like it's hammering his chest hard enough to break it. He can't. He can't. But even as his mind insists this, it is all too easy to picture himself opening Alexios, gently, slowly, then sinking into him, feeling everything all at once, infinitely more wonderful because it would be Alexios--

Then he remembers Alexios does not love him.

"I can't," he chokes out. "I'm sorry."

He is on his feet in an instant, fleeing, leaving Alexios behind him in the darkness.

* * *

In the morning Alexios is not at the officers' mess.

"The praepositus went out with the scouts, sir," Vedrix says, talking around a mouthful of bread. "Did he not tell you?"

* * *

The scouts are not back for a week, and Hilarion does not see Alexios until the evening of their return, when the officers are enjoying the usual after-meal leisure. Paulus, the surgeon, has joined him in a round of knucklebones, and it is Hilarion's throw when he sees Alexios, still wrapped in his old wolfskin cloak, walk in. He lifts the dice-cup in his commander's direction, ready to call out, to offer him a place, since they have gamed happily together for years--

Alexios' eyes flick past him, quickly, and he brushes past him even more quickly, not looking up. His lips are pressed together, his face expressionless. But he saw him, Hilarion is sure of it. Alexios has chosen to ignore him. 

They are not friends. There is no friendship between them, not anymore. Nor are they lovers, since one could hardly call their dying relationship worthy of that name. Hilarion has ruined everything, ruined it all, and gotten something that was nothing like what he wanted at all.

And the worst of it is, he would do it again, just the same, for he still loves Alexios--

"I forfeit," he rasps, letting the bones fall on the table.

* * *

For all that it will be spring soon, the weather in Belgica is cold, icy down to the bone. Alexios hardly looks at him at all, and their on-duty conversation is strictly professional, even curt. You would think they hated each other. After about the third day, Hilarion realizes other people are giving him strange looks, which is when he figures out he has stopped lounging in doorways and against walls. He tells himself that this is because the stone is so cold.

That night he goes to Alexios' quarters for the first time since... he isn't sure what to call it, and he isn't sure why he goes again. Some confused, twisted part of his mind thinks he ought to apologize. But what would he say? _I am sorry I could not fuck you. I am sorry that this is what has become of us._ They do not talk about any of it. How, then, could he say that?

But he is here nonetheless. Alexios is still awake; he can see the faint glow of an oil-lamp's flame, the light spilling out past the edges of the door-curtain. When he pulls the curtain back, he sees Alexios seated at the little desk in the corner, with ink and papyrus; Alexios' neat cursive Latin hand spiders across the scroll. It is a cold, cold night, and Alexios is still wrapped up in his wolfskin.

"Good evening." Alexios' face is once again still. But he has not told him to leave, and that is something.

"Are you busy?"

Alexios shakes his head. "It's nothing urgent. What can I do for you?" He is perfectly mannered. To look at him, you would never know what they have been doing. What Hilarion has been doing to him.

_You can do everything. You can do nothing._

He knows then how he can apologize. It is not what either of them truly wants, he is sure, but it is what he can do.

"I came to say I was sorry," says Hilarion.

And he drops to his knees on the cold stone before Alexios, shivering, holding out his hands like a suppliant before the gods, reaching out, his hands on Alexios' thighs. Under his fingers, Alexios is shivering, and he does not think it is entirely the cold.

"Let me," says Hilarion. It is all he can manage.

Alexios gives a soft, indrawn breath and says nothing else. It is not a glorious enthusiastic yes, but it is not no, either, and eventually Alexios' shaking fingers move to the ties of his breeks.

Alexios sits still, not even hard at the beginning of it, only breathing a little more roughly as Hilarion teases him into arousal with fingers first, then lips and tongue. His taste is beginning to be familiar, the feel of him comfortingly heavy and full on Hilarion's tongue; in different circumstances, Hilarion would take joy in this, if there were joy to be found here. Alexios does not thrust into Hilarion's mouth; he is still frozen, rigidly upright, as if waiting for Hilarion to come to him. But Hilarion knows a great many things about Alexios' body now, and it is easy enough to coax him toward his pleasure now, closer, closer--

When Alexios finishes, he crumples against the desk with a noise that sounds like a sob, knocking over the ink-pot. The scroll is ruined, but if he cares, he says nothing. He only pulls his cloak around himself a little tighter. Hilarion cannot see his face, for Alexios is looking away from him, staring blindly at the wall.

"I suppose," says Alexios, "if I asked you to stay the night with me." He does not finish the question, and he sounds infinitely weary, so old, for a man who cannot be much older than twenty-five.

They cannot. Suppose someone came looking in Hilarion's room, and found it empty. Or worse, suppose someone looking for Alexios instead found Hilarion in his bed with him. And this is a thing for lovers, an intimacy even closer than all the things he has done. Alexios does not love him. Alexios does not even like him, not any longer, for a friend does not leave for a week, does not ignore you at dinner. A friend would _look at you_ , just once. Alexios is only asking because it is so cold, and soldiers sometimes share hides on chilly nights. It means nothing.

Hilarion sits there, mute.

Alexios still does not look at him. "I thought as much," he says.

* * *

Alexios stalks into the morning mess, late, a tablet in his hands. Hilarion reaches out for it, but instead Alexios slams it against Hilarion's chest, hard enough to make it clack on its hinges, and Hilarion fumbles and nearly drops the thing.

"What's this, sir?"

"Your orders, ducenarius." Alexios' voice is a snarl and his eyes are the cloudy gray of a stormy sky. "Perhaps you remember having them, once."

Hilarion takes a breath. Meeting anger with anger will do no good. Not here. Not like this. It wasn't supposed to be like this. "Orders, sir?"

"The men have been slacking." Alexios snaps. "I want to see a full mounted drill, both centuries. Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" That's ridiculous. Alexios knows they haven't practiced full drill all winter; they were waiting for the snowmelt. The ground is clearer now, but it will be icy and muddy and soggy, a mess Hilarion wouldn't want to ride in.

Alexios raises a dismissive eyebrow. "Are you trying to tell me you have failed to prepare them for their duties, ducenarius?"

Hilarion swallows. "Sir. No, sir."

There is another awful, narrow-eyed glare. "I expect to see you with the rest of the men tomorrow, ducenarius. I expect just the same of you, do you understand me?"

He has not ridden the basic horse-drills since he was Gavros' man. Alexios knows this. It is an act of humiliation to ask this of a senior officer. Hilarion is beyond shame in so many ways, but he hates that this is what Alexios wants of him. "Understood, sir."

Alexios' mouth is a knife-slash of anger and he looks at Hilarion like he does not even know him before turning and leaving.

Hilarion didn't know. He had never thought of this. He thought it would break only him. He did not think they could be so wretched as to break the entire unit, and it is all wrong. He wonders, bleakly, how many they will take down with them.

Next to him, Quintus lets out a breath. "Mother of Mares, ducenarius, what did you _do_ to the commander?"

Hideous laughter threatens to bubble up in Hilarion's throat as he considers telling the centenarius exactly what he did. He bites his lip. "He took exception to my charming personality." He can't even say it with a smirk.

"He never has before."

"He did before you met me," Hilarion says. "When he was first posted to Castellum I think I annoyed him every day."

"I don't mean to offend," says Quintus, "but I liked it better when you didn't."

Hilarion shuts his eyes. "So did I."

* * *

The morning air is barely above freezing, if that, and the breath of horses and men alike plumes out before them in the chill. The ground, as Hilarion had thought, is slushy mud, still iced-over in patches, and all in all it is a hideous thing to be expected to exercise in, much less with maneuvers that they have not practiced as a whole since the autumn. But this is what Alexios wanted them to do. To punish him.

There is a flat plain a little bit away from the fort that they use for the more complex mounted drills, as the lay of the forests does not permit them any suitable space next to the stables -- at least, there is no room for a full two hundred to be put through their paces at the same time. The trail wends downhill through a little clump of forest, with the bare trees still dripping wet snow from their branches.

Hilarion waits at the far end of the group, his horse shifting and dancing impatiently underneath him, as he watches the soldiers ahead of him proceed down the trail. Ajax here is big and a little high-strung, not his usual mount, and Hilarion keeps a firmer hand on the reins than he perhaps needs to. As he watches, he is aware -- not of his horse, not of the men in front of him, but entirely of Alexios, who is further behind him, looking down on the scene from the back of his Phoenix. Hilarion's mouth twitches. The rough-coated little horse is another thing Alexios brought from Britain. He brought Hilarion and a horse. Hilarion wonders if he likes the horse better.

Much sooner than he had thought, they are alone, the two of them and their horses atop the little ridge.

He would speak, but he has no idea what to say. Nothing will help.

Alexios coughs in the way of making a suggestion. "Well, ducenarius?"

"Sir." Hilarion's voice is tight in his throat.

"Did I not say you should join the drills?" Hilarion would not have thought it possible, but Alexios' tone is more cutting than the wind. He is glad he cannot see Alexios. He does not want to see the man's face.

"You did, sir."

Each word is bitten off, crisply. "And how do you think you will join them if you are up here? Go!"

Hilarion goes hot in an awful tangle of rage and sorrow. Alexios wants to see him ride? Oh, he'll ride. He'll ride, all right. 

He kicks Ajax into a canter, only half-aware of what he is doing, and pulls him away from the trampled track down the slope to the trees. It is not thickly forested here -- the trail curves down to bend through the rest of the wood. He is only taking a shortcut, and the ground is even enough.

From somewhere behind him, he thinks Alexios is calling his name. He ignores it. If Alexios did not want this, he should never have ordered it. If he has to drill on the field like a raw recruit, Hilarion will get there his own way, orders be damned.

The ground levels off, a little bit farther away. At the very bottom of this slope is a huge fallen tree, roots and all. He squints at it. Perhaps it is two trees; it is hard to tell with the mass of branches. It is a man's height, or thereabouts. Maybe a little less. Ajax can take it; he is not one of the ponies. Ha. Of course he can. Hilarion can take it. He leans forward in the saddle, rising up for the jump, seeing Ajax' head raise and feeling the great muscles bunch and gather underneath him as the horse leans back.

_You wanted horsemanship? Watch me._

As Ajax' front hooves leave the ground, Hilarion suddenly knows it is all wrong. All his knowledge, all the instincts of a ten-year cavalryman should have told him, but he wasn't listening. Ajax won't clear it. There isn't enough room, they were too close, Hilarion urged him on too quickly for him to get the power for it, and it's too late to stop it.

And they are flying--

Then Ajax' back legs scrape the pile of logs in a wild kick, and Ajax twists under him, leaving Hilarion almost in the air, wrenched out of the saddle. Ajax comes down wrong-footed, uneven, and far too hard on his left foreleg, down and down and down, still falling, stumbling and slipping down the slope, and dimly Hilarion is aware that his own body is on a different path, up and further out of the saddle, the reins slipping out of his hands, and now he is the one flying--

His last thought, as the icy ground rushes to meet him, is that Alexios will be furious if he's lamed the horse.

Then there is nothing.

* * *

His head hurts.

Someone is saying his name.

"Hilarion," the voice says, torn and raw and broken, "open your eyes. Hilarion, _please_ , Hilarion, I'm sorry." There is a choked-off sound, and he can hardly understand the words. "I never meant-- Name of Light, Hilarion. You're my best friend. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Anything you want. I'll do it for you. Even if you want me to leave. Whatever it is, I will do it. Just open your eyes, please, talk to me. Say something. Even tell me you hate me. Anything. Please--"

It sounds like Alexios' voice, but he cannot imagine Alexios saying anything of the sort. Maybe he's dreaming. His head hurts so much, though.

He cracks one eye open and then the other, and winces at the too-bright sky. The world is a little bit blurry, but it is not so blurred that he cannot make out Alexios, who is kneeling next to him, heedless of the slush. And Alexios looks--

Hilarion is not sure there are words for the depth of it. Alexios' skin is awful and sallow; he is dark enough that it does not show in the same way, but with any other complexion he would be bone-white. Alexios' face is twisted, tortured, wretched, and Hilarion is not sure if he is imagining the tear-tracks down his cheeks. Alexios' eyes are pale as ashes, glassy, far too wet. It is worse than he looked at Onnum, in the depths of the wound-fever. It is worse than the look on his face as Castellum fell apart, knife in his hands as he walked toward Connla, twisting in his bonds. It is even worse than he looked at Bremenium, bleeding in the circle of the torchlight with Cunorix dead under him. Hilarion has never known Alexios to look like this.

The noise Alexios makes then is a sort of gasp, all panicked relief. "Immortal gods! Hilarion, you're-- can you talk?"

Hilarion's tongue is thick and awkward in his mouth. "Horse?" he tries. Alexios doesn't seem to understand him at first. "Horse... all right?" He doesn't see Ajax anywhere. On the other hand, he doesn't really want to lift his head to look. 

Alexios nods. "He got up and ran off. He's going to be fine. I saw one of the optiones chasing him down." His mouth twists. "You, though -- you were the one who didn't get up."

"'M fine," he slurs, and tries to push himself up. His arms and legs work well enough, but he is suddenly seized by a dizzy spell and lets himself fall back. 

"Stay _down_ , Hilarion." Alexios' voice is chiding, but there is affection in it, and Hilarion suddenly realizes how much of that there has been lacking between them, these past few weeks, and how much he has craved it.

He turns his head to the side. The snow has a reddish tint to it, and his face hurts and-- oh. He puts his hand to his temple and his fingertips come away sticky.

Alexios' hand is curled about his shoulder. How long has it been there? It feels nice. He looks down at it. There's blood on Alexios' hand too, on his tunic. His blood.

"Bleeding," Hilarion observes, groggily. "Bled on you."

Alexios waves his free hand. "That doesn't matter. The part where you hit your head, however--"

"I've never been better." The words come out of him much clearer this time. This is encouraging. "Do I seem like a man who's never been punched in the head before? I'll be fine." He tries a grin. This time his mouth works right.

Then, emboldened by that success, he attempts to push himself upright again. He makes it this time, but he promptly disgorges the remains of his breakfast into the mud as his pounding head passes the protest on to his stomach.

"I did tell you to stay down," Alexios says, sounding strangely fond still, and somehow Alexios is holding his hand. This is good. Alexios is so warm. Why did he ever think this was a bad idea?

He leans his pounding head against Alexios' shoulder, hoping that this will help the pain. It doesn't, but he likes it anyway. "Orders," he mutters into Alexios' tunic. "Pfft. Besides, how would you know it was me if I wasn't leaning on something?"

Alexios starts to chuckle. "I always know it's you, Hilarion," he says, and Hilarion will fall off a horse every day if it makes Alexios like him again.

* * *

Hilarion hates the infirmary.

It was easy enough to gather from the look in Alexios' eyes that Alexios wished he could put aside all duties and take him back to the fort to see the surgeon that instant. Unfortunately, Alexios was left supervising the very drill that he had ordered, and that task was passed on to Vedrix, who came back up the hill leading his own pony with one hand and poor Ajax -- thankfully not lamed -- with the other. Hilarion threw his arms around Ajax' neck and whispered a prayer to Epona in the horse's mane. For this he would give the Mother of Mares a chicken. No, two chickens. No, two chickens and a cow, the finest snow-white heifer. Maybe an altar-stone. When he looked up again, Vedrix was eyeing him strangely.

But he was able to walk well enough, and the fort was not far. After enduring Paulus' brisk examination, having his head bandaged and prodded and his eyes stared at, Hilarion is now here, in the infirmary, with the pain beginning to recede. It is good, Paulus tells him, but it is not good enough, since he won't let Hilarion leave.

He will just be well, he thinks, if they will let him alone. But there is neither peace nor quiet to be found in the infirmary. No one is dying today, but the complaints of sick men are hardly nice -- there is a great deal of coughing and moaning, and the man next to him is in the middle of some sort of fever that causes him to wake up every so often babbling about things Hilarion cannot understand. And that does not even begin to address the smells.

"I'm perfectly fine," he tells Paulus, after what feels like the hundredth time the man has inquired about his headache. He has been here for hours. One of the orderlies fed him something that he thought might have been dinner. Can he not just go back to his own quarters? "I am more than ready to be let out of here. The headache is much better. It is as I was telling the commander, I have been in fights before, truly."

Paulus harrumphs. "And this one, you lost."

"But--"

"But nothing," says Paulus, in the crisp, definitive voice that an army surgeon uses to tell a man who is technically his superior officer what to do. Hilarion suspects him of enjoying this. "I want you observed at least until the middle of the night. That means that someone has to sit with you. Constantly. And I can't spare anyone from here to keep you company." The look he gives Hilarion indicates that perhaps an orderly could have been found if, say, the injury had occurred during some brave defense of the fort -- but there was no special treatment for a man who hit his head as part of a chain of events begun by a deliberate decision to be an reckless, unthinking idiot. At least Paulus does not actually need to say this aloud.

"I'll find someone--" Hilarion tries.

Paulus is still staring, unimpressed. "You're going to order a man to come sit with you half the night? Are you going to take him off watch for this, or will you make him give up his sleep instead?"

All right, so it does seem unfair to make some poor soldier pay for his idiocy. Hilarion tries again. "Maybe I could--"

"If I take him off your hands," comes Alexios' voice, from the doorway, "will that be satisfactory?"

Paulus turns and salutes. "Praepositus."

Hilarion can't see Alexios until he comes a little further into the room, but when he does -- Alexios is smiling at him, just a little, and even that much of a sign makes Hilarion's heart seize up in joy.

"How are you doing, Hilarion?"

"Fine, sir," says Hilarion, "only he won't let me leave." He is not quite certain how he feels about spending time with Alexios now, after everything, but if they're getting better-- if Alexios likes him again--

Alexios glances over to Paulus, who looks first at him, then back at Hilarion, as if he doesn't know what to make of either of them. "If you'll allow the ducenarius to go back to his quarters, I can sit with him, if this is acceptable to you," Alexios offers again.

Paulus shrugs. "Far be it for me to tell the praepositus how to spend his night. I want him kept awake until the beginning of the third watch. He can sleep after that, if his head is no worse and he is not dizzy or sick or-- oh, you would notice if he began acting oddly. If he starts to worsen, summon me immediately."

Alexios nods. "I can do that." He lifts an inquisitive eyebrow at Hilarion. "If it is well with you, of course, Hilarion." The question surely sounds simple to anyone who is not either of them, but there is much more behind it.

Hilarion smiles. "It is well with me."

* * *

It becomes less well after Alexios gets him to his room, lights the lamps, and guides him to his bed. Without a word of complaint, and before Hilarion can tell him not to, Alexios is kneeling on the floor unlacing Hilarion's sandals for him, quietly intent on his task. Then all at once he rises to join Hilarion, sitting next to him on the edge of the bed.

"I know you're not well," Alexios says, with a very little smile. "You're still sitting upright."

Hilarion smirks. "I could lean on the wall if it would reassure you."

"I've a better idea." Alexios stretches out an arm. "Come here," he whispers, and Hilarion lets himself fall into Alexios' embrace.

It is not as easy as it was before, when Hilarion was half out of his mind from the accident. Alexios is a warm, steady presence, and his very closeness is frightening in a way Hilarion does not quite understand. He can feel Alexios' heartbeat under his head. He knows Alexios' body intimately, but this is another kind of intimacy entirely. They have been friends. They have been lovers. But they have not been whatever this is, save a few moments at Onnum, in reverse -- he remembers holding Alexios in his arms then, feeding him from his own hands. He is not sure he can bear this great nameless thing; it feels too huge for his heart to hold alone. He wants it nonetheless, and he is terrified that he wants it.

Alexios feels him tense up, he is certain. He does not mean to tense, but it seems too that he cannot help it; the pain in his head is making him a little unsteady with his feelings. He cannot rein them in as he ought to.

Sighing, Alexios releases him, letting him sit back up. Hilarion does not know how to say that he wishes Alexios would have held him anyway. 

"So it's like that, is it?" asks Alexios, looking away. "We can't keep doing this. I can't keep doing this. Not like this."

This will be the end of it. Hilarion doesn't blame him. The gods know he certainly hasn't been kind to Alexios.

"I know," he says, and that is all he can manage.

The flickering lamplight picks out Alexios' profile, contorted now in a sort of anguish. " _You_ know?" he echoes, and his voice is half-mocking. "If you know, by all means, explain it to me! You'll suck my cock, but you won't let me touch you?" 

"It's-- it's not--" The words are strangled in Hilarion's throat. 

"I thought at the very first that perhaps I did not truly arouse you, regardless of what your body seemed to say," Alexios begins, sounding unsure. "Then I thought perhaps that you did not desire anyone's touch, perhaps not even your own. If that is true I will accept it, but I think... I think you could enjoy it, could you not?" He bites his lip. "I am not a selfish man. I want you to enjoy yourself as well. Let me show you pleasure. Let us be friends again. We can-- we can have both things, if you will only talk to me, if you will only tell me what is wrong. Please."

He can't say it. He can't. He opens his mouth, but there are no words there.

Alexios' head begins to droop. "Or is it me? I am not vastly experienced," he says, in an ashamed mumble, "and you have probably guessed that, but I do not think I am so ill at it, if you will only let me try." When Hilarion does not fill the silence with words, Alexios takes a heaving breath. "Or not."

"It wasn't supposed to--" Hilarion tries. "It wasn't-- it isn't about me. It isn't about what I desire. That night, I only wanted to please you--"

Quite suddenly, Alexios' head snaps up, his eyes narrowed. "Was it pity, then?" he says, his words twisted now with unexpected bitterness, the kind of feeling that has festered for so long, hidden, an awful thing Hilarion never saw in him before. It takes Hilarion aback, so much so that Alexios must think it agreement, and he presses on while Hilarion is speechless. "Ah, so it was pity all along. I thought it might have been that. A kindness to your poor commander, alone on Midwinter Night, as you said. I should never have-- but I was weak, and I could not deny myself what you were finally offering, even if you never really-- even if it was only because you felt sorry--"

"Sorry?" Hilarion says, incredulous. His own anger is rising hot in him, and it is a precarious, unpredictable thing. It feels equally like he could rage for days or break down sobbing. "Do you think, do you truly think I would sleep with anyone because I pitied them? Because I felt sorry? There has been enough sorrow to drown in, for so many men. Have I made anyone else this offer? You have known me near three years. Tell me, how many people have I had since then? Count them."

His voice rings out of him, a command if there ever was one, a tone no one should use to their superiors, or worse, their friends, and after he says it he instantly regrets it. There is a line here, but Hilarion knows he will not find it until after he has crossed it.

Alexios' throat works. After a long time he speaks. "I have never... I don't know. I always assumed you were spending your coin at the women's huts... but I have not known you to lie with anyone else."

"One time," Hilarion says, very quietly, and Alexios looks up, surprised. "Since I've known you. He was a wonderful young man, in Rutupiae's best brothel, the night before we set sail last year. Beautiful. I thought he was one of the more handsome men I'd ever met. I can't even tell you how attractive I found him."

Alexios is beginning to look more and more miserable, drooping, bending, slumped forward. "Why are you telling me this?"

"He was very pretty," Hilarion continues. "Slender. He had lovely pale eyes, but on the whole he was quite dark. I never asked him where he was from, but he looked Greek to me." He pauses, and Alexios flinches hard. "So I fucked him, and I paid him twice what he was asking. And do you know why?"

"Why?" The question is an awful rasp.

"He let me call him Alexios."

Alexios turns toward him at that, full in the light. He is trembling, his eyes wide, and his lips are parted. There is still color in his cheeks, as if he is torn between anger and joy.

"How long?" he whispers.

Hilarion's mouth twitches. How can he begin to answer that? It is not as if there is some great divide between a day he didn't love Alexios and the day he first did. There is the day he knew it, but he is not sure Alexios would understand even if he could explain. He remembers how it felt after he offered to kill Connla, the words falling out of him before he could think about it, the certain knowledge that he would offer whatever it took to lessen Alexios' burden, to be able to take the pain in his place.

"Hilarion, damn you," says Alexios, very softly. "How long?"

"Since I met you."

Alexios shifts a little where he sits, stretching a hand forward and then aborting the motion, all confused. His hands lie now in his lap, with his emerald dolphin ring sparkling in the light. "You want me," he says, uncertainly. "You want me, but you will not let me hold you. You will not even let me do so much as look at you--"

"I--" Hilarion tries again, and finds the words once more stuck in his throat. He is the substitute. He is the replacement.

"It is not as though I don't know what you look like," Alexios points out. This is true enough. Certainly they have bathed together. Alexios smiles a little and tries to make a joke of it. "Why, if I cannot see you, I am obviously here imagining you are another man! Thank you for making that easier!"

It is a jest. It is only a jest. It is no worse than some of the jests Hilarion has made, and he knows Alexios does not mean it. But he still feels unstable, off-balance, and the words catch him hard and unexpected like a punch up and under his ribs. It is as if they were real after all, with Alexios saying everything that he had feared. Everything inside him twists up in one convulsive heave and he wonders if he will be sick again.

Alexios goes pale.

"Name of Light, Hilarion," he whispers, "is this what you think of me?"

Hilarion takes a deep, dizzying breath. "I think... I think you loved Cunorix."

Alexios inhales raggedly and goes very, very still. Hilarion does not think he has said Cunorix' name since he died, and for an instant it echoes strangely around his head, around the room, as if the name itself could bring the man back from beyond the sunset. 

"I think I cannot be him for you. I tried. I thought I could. But if I cannot... at least I will not be myself."

There. He has said it. 

Alexios is still colorless, trembling now, half in shadow. "I never-- Cunorix and I, we never--"

Does he think that matters? "I know. But you loved him anyway."

There is a long silence, stretching between them, and Hilarion waits for the words he has feared, the words for which he has spent all these nights in silence, so that he might avoid them. Alexios will tell him, yes, he is right, his grief for Cunorix is so great that no one could ever replace him, that Hilarion has been a fool to try, that he has ruined their friendship and their working relationship both--

"Of course I loved him," Alexios says, and Hilarion shuts his eyes. He doesn't want to know this, even though it is the truth. "Do you want me to lie to you? But he was-- he loved his wife. Not me. And then there was Connla, and if there had not been Connla, there would have been something else to rip us asunder. That did not stop me loving him, though."

He expected this. He did.

There is a touch on his arm. "No, Hilarion. Look at me."

Hilarion opens his eyes, but only because Alexios has asked.

Alexios' hand lies tentatively on his arm, a band of warmth, and somehow there is a very small smile on his face. "I loved him when I met him, and what of that? Is that any more noble than a love that takes time? The second kind is love too, just as much. Perhaps it is better, even, to love someone after you know them, so that you might love them as they are and not as you imagine they could be."

He can't be saying this. Alexios can't mean him. He would have noticed. He would have known.

"I am the one who is still alive, no more." It is easy enough to repeat what has been in his mind for so long. "It was him you cared for. I am not stupid."

"You are being an idiot," Alexios says, still smiling, but he says the words with a strange kind of vehemence. There is a liking in it, even though it is an insult. Hilarion has no brothers, but he feels as if it must be akin to family, the way that one brother may speak ill of another because he cares. Perhaps it is a different sort of family.

"Am I?"

"Did you think that because I loved him, I could not love you? Am I only allowed to love once in my life, then? Do you think I do not love you?" The smile has become a little exasperated. "Is _that_ what this is about?"

He can't mean it. He can't. Hilarion wants more than anything for it to be true. It isn't. It just isn't.

"I saw your face," Hilarion insists. "Every time you looked at him, every time you even spoke of him, you were-- you have never looked at me like that. Not like that. And lately, not like you even like me. Not like you're even happy."

"Would you be happy, if you were me?" Alexios gestures about the room, a swing of his arm that seems to encompass their entire relationship. "Are you happy with the way it has been between us?"

"I-- Alexios--" He can't think of how to say it. He wants-- but what does Alexios want?

"No lies. No more lies, Hilarion. Please." Alexios is pleading with him now.

Hilarion takes another deep breath and finds that it is steadying. He dares to reach out, to take Alexios' hand, and that is even more steadying. Alexios' fingers wrap around his. Again it is the same thing he felt before, the same thing he felt at Onnum, a fragile thing, a great gentle warmth, growing between them. He thinks now he can name it, if they can bear it together.

"The truth," he says, his voice wavering. "The truth." Then he grins. "You first."

Alexios laughs, halfway between delight and derision. Perhaps both. "You would say that, wouldn't you?" he murmurs, amused.

"I would." 

"It is you I want. For yourself. And if I look at you differently that is only because it is a different sort of love, or you have draped yourself over my furniture." Alexios shakes his head, laughing again. "You're a mouthy bastard, you cheat at dice, and when I met you I spent three months trying to decide whether you hated me, but I would not have you any other way. I swear it."

Hilarion's heart is pounding again, but for once the tension is pleasant. "You truly--?"

"Yes." Alexios smiles, still looking nervous himself. "The truth: I want-- do you want--" He stops, licks his lips, and tries again. "Would you let me kiss you?"

"I would let you do anything," Hilarion breathes, and it is the truth.

It is an awkward kiss. Their noses bump, and Alexios' stubble is rough against his cheek. He is clumsy -- they are both terribly clumsy -- but that only makes it sweeter. Alexios sighs and melts against him, like a long-awaited thaw, embracing him fiercely, trembling and hopeful. Hilarion loves it.

"Oh," Alexios says, when they break apart, and the small sound is brimming with wonder. Then he seems to pause, uncertain. "You said, before, you didn't like kissing--"

"That was a lie." He supposes he shouldn't even make a joke about this one. "I love it. I love--" he lets himself smile-- "very many things."

Relaxing, Alexios brings a fingertip up to trace the shape of Hilarion's mouth. "Good."

"I am afraid, though," Hilarion admits, "that tonight I am not good for much more than kissing."

Alexios gives a guilty start and drops his hand.

"I'll be fine," Hilarion insists. "My head is getting better."

"Not worse?" That's the voice of his commander.

"Not worse. I'll heal." He gives the pillow a wistful look. "If I could just lie down, though. Promise I won't sleep."

"I'll keep you talking," Alexios says.

_Hold me_ , he wants to say.

"It seems to me," he tries, "that earlier, the praepositus offered his services as a pillow."

"The praepositus will happily do so again," says Alexios, already sliding himself up the mattress, "provided that you never, ever call him the praepositus in bed."

It is a very great effort not to say _yes, sir_ , but then Alexios pulls him backwards to lie against him, and Hilarion is distracted by the feel of Alexios' hands in his hair, gingerly touching his head, gliding over his shoulders. _Yes_ , he thinks. _Know me. This is me._

"About that--" Hilarion begins, because someone has to say it.

"We are still the Frontier Wolves," Alexios says. "In a thousand years, no one will ever bring charges, and you know it."

He has a point.

"You know," says Hilarion, thoughtfully, "I'm not sure whether I hated you those first three months, either."

"I thought you said you loved me."

"I did. What, will you tell me now that you can only feel one thing at a time?"

"I know how I feel now," says Alexios, and he reaches out to take Hilarion's hand.

* * *

He is so solidly asleep that he doesn't hear the call for morning muster; the only thing that wakes him is when Alexios, looking apologetic, shifts out from under him and slides off the bed. Half-asleep still, Hilarion reaches out and tries to grab him back, but this only earns him a smile as Alexios dances out of the way.

"Duties," Alexios says, though he looks as if he'd much rather stay. "Alas."

"Yes," Hilarion drawls. "Twice as many of them. I hear your fool of a ducenarius fell off a horse yesterday and left you with all his work."

Alexios chuckles. "Inconsiderate, I suppose, but I'll manage."

"I think he's learned his lesson," says Hilarion, wincing. It feels like every muscle in his body is sore, locked-up and stiff. His head's much better, though.

Alexios leans in and kisses him. It is hardly a grand gesture of passion, merely a quick brush of lips on lips; Hilarion likes it far more for what it signifies than what it is. Alexios loves him. He's coming back.

"Get some rest, eh? I'll see you later."

With that, Alexios is gone, and Hilarion falls back into quiet, pleasant half-sleep, the sort where he is not certain how awake he is, nor how much time passes. An orderly comes by with food. Paulus comes by to check on him, and looks grudgingly pleased with his progress, though he wants him to rest another day if he can be spared. He falls asleep again. The light begins to darken, and an orderly comes by with another meal.

He appreciates the sleep, and the food, but he is beginning to feel restless. He pushes himself to his feet and stretches, knowing that he will appreciate the stretch even if it hurts now. It is well after the evening mess should have concluded, and there is still no sign of Alexios.

He could look for him, but Alexios had said he would come back. Perhaps he changed his mind. It is not so unthinkable. Perhaps he decided he would rather not do this after all. Alexios is still his superior officer, and even if no one cares particularly what they do in the Wolves to keep warm at night, the same people might care very much if it impacted the functioning of the numerus. Already one rough patch between them has led to Hilarion's injury. Perhaps Alexios has thought about this, soberly.

Sighing, he eases himself back down onto the mattress.

It is then that Alexios pushes the curtain open. He looks exhausted, barely awake, but he is smiling a brilliant smile and his eyes sparkle with happiness. And that is all for Hilarion. It is not the same as-- as before, no, but how could he ever have missed this?

"Sorry," Alexios is saying, and he is at Hilarion's side, sitting next to him as Hilarion moves over to give him room on the bed. "There was-- well-- an incident. And I will be ever so pleased when you are on duty. I think they are so awful because they miss you."

"Oh?"

Alexios rubs at his eyes. "If anyone wants to tell you about the signifer and the goat, just-- don't ask. It's better not to know."

Hilarion laughs. "Now I think I have to know."

"Still," says Alexios, neatly evading the request, "it will be better when you are back on duty."

Hilarion hesitates. "And you do not mind that... that we are together, while you command me?" Suppose they fight again? Suppose it is not even well between them, and that when Alexios touches him they would fall again into that place of awful silence?

"What is all this seriousness?" Alexios takes hold of his hand. "Tell me a joke, Hilarion, else I will think you are not yourself."

Why is he forever thinking things he cannot explain?

"Ah, I am strange, alone with my thoughts. Pay it no mind."

Alexios says nothing, but he begins to stroke Hilarion's fingertips down to his palm, then his palm down to his wrist, his wrist to his elbow all along the inside of his arm. Alexios' fingers are slender and a little rough, callused from the sword. They are neither of them delicate people. He is warm and so alive, and suddenly Hilarion is very conscious of Alexios' body next to his. The line that Alexios traces on his skin is all heat, making him flush with the sudden rushing warmth of it. It is so very good, and gradually other parts of Hilarion's body begin to take notice.

Awkwardly, Hilarion twists under the blankets. He didn't know Alexios could do this to him just by holding his hand. He does not know if Alexios meant to do this to him, and if Alexios did not, he cannot just ask for everything he had been telling him he did not want.

"Are you well?" Alexios asks. "Is it your head?"

Hilarion opens his mouth to speak and finds that he possesses a strange sighing gasp and a voice that is much lower than the one he had thought to use. "I find that when you do that, I am very well indeed."

"Oh," says Alexios, and then in a very different tone: " _Oh._ " He looks down Hilarion's body, where the proof of this begins to be plainly obvious now that Hilarion has shoved his way out of the blankets. "Can I-- please--?"

"Anything you want," Hilarion says, and he gasps out the last word into Alexios' mouth as Alexios leans down to kiss him.

"I will be gentle," Alexios murmurs.

Hilarion smirks. "But I like it hard."

The strangled noise Alexios makes is extremely gratifying. "It would be better," he says, recovering admirably, "if we restrained ourselves while you are still unwell."

And then all at once Alexios is fumbling with Hilarion's... tunic? That is not what he expected.

"Hmm?" Hilarion manages, confused.

"Told you I wanted to see you," Alexios says. "If you'll let me."

Once the tunic is off, Hilarion catches sight of his own bruises, an awful mottling about his shoulders.

"I'm usually prettier than this, you know."

Alexios snorts. "Go on, then, tell me how gorgeous you are." The words are joking, but the way his hands trace Hilarion's skin is anything but, solid and real and he means it, he truly means it--

"I," says Hilarion archly, "am incredibly beautiful, and you should feel so fortunate as to-- oh, mmm, yes--"

As he speaks, Alexios unfastens his breeks, and then has him in hand. Hilarion gasps and pushes up into Alexios' fingers, shaking with the effort not to come immediately, as if he were still a youth.

"Ah, gods," he pants out, "what you do to me--"

Alexios is staring down at his hands with a little smirk on his face. "That's flattering."

"That's one word for it," Hilarion says through gritted teeth. "I haven't-- before, when we were, I couldn't-- even by myself--"

"No?" Alexios seems to have no difficulty following his half-finished thoughts and strokes one finger up the length of him as he talks. "How about now?"

That alone might undo him; he has to shut his eyes before he is entirely pushed over the edge.

"I could," he says, with difficulty, "I could probably come right now if you _breathed_ on me."

"Well," says Alexios, sounding thoughtful, and then he is stripping the rest of Hilarion's clothes from him, shifting about to lie between Hilarion's legs. His eyes meet Hilarion's, determined but with a strange hint of fear in them, and then he bends his head and--

He's breathing on him.

Hilarion starts laughing, and Alexios looks up and grins at him.

"Not as you promised," Alexios says, and there is a challenge in his gaze.

"Mmm." Hilarion's heart is pounding. "Any other ideas?"

And then Alexios takes him into his mouth. He is, as he said, not very experienced -- he scrapes him just a little at first, and he doesn't seem to know how much he can take, to set up a good rhythm at first -- but Hilarion finds he does not care about any of this. Alexios is looking up at him almost uncertainly, pulling his mouth off him every so often to kiss his stomach, his hips, to lick him more thoroughly, and he's still smiling. He likes this. He _likes_ this, Hilarion realizes, as he sees Alexios' other hand disappear down, down his own body, and Alexios moans and starts to rock and thrust against him.

"Oh, yes," Hilarion breathes, and he wishes he could see what Alexios is doing, but knowing it is almost as good. "Come on, come on--"

Alexios grins at him, a dare. "This time," he says, with red, wet lips, "this time, you first--"

And his mouth is on Hilarion's cock again, taking him down, down, and Hilarion can't hold back anymore, pushing into Alexios' mouth and spending himself, gasping, moaning, and he knows Alexios is still watching him, and oh--

There comes a distressing spluttering sound, and Hilarion opens his eyes to see Alexios turning his head and spitting, his face twisted in disgust.

"Sorry," Alexios is muttering, looking away. "Didn't think it was going to be quite so. That."

"It is no matter." Hilarion feels like liquid now, like there are no bones left in his body, blanketed in contentment. "Anyway, my fault, I should have said. Haven't done that in a while, eh?"

Alexios makes an entirely different face. "Or ever."

Oh, no. The possibility that "not very experienced" is overstating the matter suddenly enters Hilarion's head, and an awful chill grips him. What if Alexios never-- with anyone-- and he's been treating him like this all along--

"Alexios," he says, very carefully. "Do you mean to say that--"

But Alexios is shaking his head, and something in Hilarion relaxes to see it. Not entirely, of course, because it is not as if Hilarion's behavior would have been excusable had Alexios slept with an entire garrison, but it is good to know that Alexios at least has some other knowledge of how things might be.

"No, I meant it as I said it, before. I have done some things, just not that." He smiles. "I am looking forward to trying it again."

"Is there something you'd like to do now?" For Alexios, he can tell, is not yet sated; he is tense, tight, coiled. Poised. Waiting for a touch. Like this, he is so very beautiful.

"After you are better," Alexios assures him, "a great number of things. But for now, I would like to be kissed."

It is a bit of work finding a way to fit them both on the bed in such a position that does not involve anyone lying on Hilarion and all his bruises, but they find, soon enough, that with Hilarion on his side there is just enough room for Alexios, now undressed and even more handsome, to curl up next to him, for Hilarion to take Alexios in hand, with their heads level.

He expects that this will be familiar, a routine act, for he knows now how to bring Alexios off. It has been a quiet, fast thing. A simple, almost restrained thing. Then Alexios kisses him, and Hilarion realizes he knows nothing about it. Alexios is wild against him, moaning into his mouth, biting at Hilarion's lips, thrusting desperately into his hands as if he absolutely cannot get enough, too overwhelmed in his desire to even direct it.

"Please, yes," Alexios gasps into his mouth. "Harder. Oh, please, harder."

Hilarion tries tightening his hand a little, but he knows Alexios does not like to be touched quite like that. He has learned that much of him. And then it occurs to him exactly what Alexios means, and he slides his tongue, as roughly as he can, into Alexios' mouth, heavy and slick and hard, and again, and again. Alexios moans the most astonishing sound, a sound Hilarion has never heard from him, a noise of absolute ecstasy, and then he is shuddering against Hilarion, hot in his hands, trembling for a long while.

"Hilarion," Alexios says, amazed, and Hilarion's name has never sounded as sweet. All at once Hilarion is both incredibly gratified at what he has wrought and suddenly laid low at the thought that they could have had _this_ all along. And he thought Alexios had been enjoying himself.

"Was it," he asks, and he hates to ask, but he has to know, "was it so bad with me before?"

Alexios smiles weakly, still in the midst of his own lassitude. "Never bad. I closed my eyes and imagined you kissing me. Things like that. Very... motivating."

Oh. And he had thought-- he had thought all along it was--

"I have been an _idiot_."

"Mmm," Alexios says, sleepily. "You're better now."

* * *

The dishes have been cleared, the torches are ablaze, and there is plenty of room on the benches of the officers' mess. Not this bench, of course. This bench is Hilarion's. Hilarion stretches one leg along the wood and draws the other up to his chest. It is quite comfortable.

He rattles the dice in the cup. "Any takers? Quintus? Paulus?"

Paulus looks up and shakes his head, and Quintus looks a little sour. Hilarion does not see why. He gave him all the money back last week. It's not as if he would have kept it. Well, not for long.

A familiar shape makes his way through the doorway at the far end, and Hilarion grins. "Dice, sir?"

"Off-duty," corrects Alexios, absently, grinning back and weaving his way through the rows of tables. "If you're going to rob me blind, at least rob your friend and not your commander."

"He cheats," Quintus calls out, unnecessarily. "I wouldn't play with him. Not again."

Hilarion smiles his second-best innocent smile.

Alexios sits down. "Nonsense," he says. "I am certain it will be a good game." He does not, Hilarion notes, say it will be a fair game, but this is only because Alexios does know him.

"Excellent choice." Hilarion passes the dice-cup over, and the other officers go back to their conversation.

Alexios takes the cup and then looks down at the bare surface of the table. "We are surely not playing for coin. And we are clearly not playing for beans, as you have brought none. What, then, are the stakes?"

"I had a thought," says Hilarion, low-voiced, leaning back and smirking. "I thought that perhaps the loser might perform certain... tasks... for the winner."

Alexios' eyes snap up to meet his. It would be a hard thing for anyone else to tell, but Alexios' eyes are a fraction wider, his face perhaps a shade darker.

When he is very sure that no one else is looking, Hilarion lets himself lick his lips, a quick, tiny motion, and Alexios' gaze fixes on his mouth. As he watches, Alexios shifts in his seat, pulling his cloak over himself, so that there is nothing... obvious. Ha. He has him. He has him now.

"What-- what sort of tasks did you have in mind?" Alexios says, his voice half-strangled.

"Oh, you know." Hilarion gives him a cheerful grin. "Inventory."

Alexios blinks several times in a row, and it takes everything in Hilarion's power not to start laughing now. "In-- inventory?"

"Why, of course," he says, as blandly as possible. "It must be done sometime soon, after all." And now, now, he brings out his very best innocent smile. "Why, what did you think I meant?"

Alexios' mouth is hanging open, and he seems to be having difficulty forming sentences. "I-- you--"

"Your throw," Hilarion prompts him.

Alexios is not very focused at all for the first few throws, and Hilarion wonders if perhaps this means Alexios missed seeing when the dice dropped neatly out of Hilarion's sleeve into his palm. Shame. He is usually so observant.

* * *

The plan, he thinks sadly, seems to have gone awry. After winning what was possibly the most lopsided victory in the history of dice, Hilarion offered a rematch that Alexios declined. Then Alexios bade everyone a good night, and here Hilarion is, alone, in his room. Well, you can't blame a man for trying--

"Those were several very lucky throws you made," Alexios says, from the doorway, and Hilarion jumps in surprise.

One breath. Two. "Oh, were they?" he asks, smiling. "Truly I am favored by the gods."

"So favored that your dice only roll Venus?" Alexios grins. "And... inventory, Hilarion?"

"Inventory," Hilarion says, rising to meet Alexios where he stands in the middle of the room. "What of it?"

Alexios looks up, and his mouth is pressed into a shaking line that suggests that he is trying very hard not to laugh. "It's not due yet."

"Oh, I know." Hilarion steps toward him. "But nonetheless I think that there are some areas that have not been... explored."

Alexios inhales once, sharply. His hand is on Hilarion's hand now, on his arm, up to his shoulder. Everywhere he touches tingles, and Hilarion is suddenly breathless with the need for it, for everything, to be touched everywhere--

"Are there?"

"Indeed," Hilarion says, leaning down and brushing his lips against Alexios' forehead, against his cheek. "I think we would be remiss if we did not make a complete and thorough accounting. As soon as possible."

Alexios pulls him close. "We can do that."


End file.
